The road behind bares us a backdrop, too many nights find us fractured in our thoughts and the dreamers we once were are far from the two people who stand today.

We're broken, mere splinters of our shipwreck past, driftwood on a shore that drowns every time the ocean breathes.
The path is littered with slaughtered dreams that didn't bleed.

As time and tide wait for no man shall we find it a tragic scene?
simply erased with the sunsets demise?
No one gets away without a scar and mine speak a road map to chaos
and a found hello to you.

Mine own scars are fingertips
gouged into the sand and faded
but salted by tears of the ocean, inerasable by the tide.
A soul washed up upon the shore, a road map etched delicately into fine bones.
You can trace where I'd been before. All roads lead to your hello.

In broken lines and have uttered phrases and one too many empty night.
Backdrop of chaos does paint in the darkest colors you could ever imagine .

How does it gets so flawed by our own creations and vices my dear?
Does it still ring ever so true?

The bell rings true whispering distant voices
Empty nights are just bottles lined up as dead soldiers
We contemplated our own truths and fell victim to our own vices
The backdrop is black, no colour beneath skin.
Honestly? Where does our downfall begin?

Two ships underneath the nightscape past the spark once understood the flame and nothing more .
In empty alleys, like cats to prowl, we find our moments, and then bury our thoughts to lay for no others to see.

half written papers and half heard conversation the keys of the piano haunt the silence as myself shadows that still remain.

Nothing is but a thought and those are like dead flowers laid to waste a reflection of far better times

The night crawls to meet the day as it has so many times before.

The thought of the minds bottle lay empty upon the table.
A fond farewell is but a sugar coated goodbye.
And I seldom have minced my words to mask their sting.

The page forever bleeds.

Pages that lay scattered on a ***** floor
Bleeding ink into cracks
that will forever more
hide the spirit of our souls.

I know the place where the clouds collide
And the oars are lightning bolts
That you use to steer through the starry skies
When the milky way tide sends your cumulus boat
On a whirlwind through the night

I know the place where the moonbeams are carved
And then cast into the sky
To light your path on the nightscape sea
As you race through your nightmares
And drift though your dreams

I was afraid.
Terrified, even
paralyzed
with fear.
But that’s all
gone now.
Like a vapor
scattered
on the breeze.

Happiness
traces back
to only one,
for me.
She’s so
beautiful
and strong,
and her hair
is soft and red
like a fox’s.

Oh how
I love her.
Beyond words.

More than
every contour
of every leaf
on a forest,
fall yellow
like an oil
painting.

More than
the sudden
spasmodic
fits of gentle
laughter
that make my
entire upper
body vibrate
like one huge
drumhead.

More even
than the
hidden,
distant stars,
sparkling
imperceptibly
through the
misty clouds.

She makes
my arms twitch
with excitement,
my body aching
to embrace
her and hold on.
With her head
on my shoulder
this world really
does seem so
much brighter.

the last time i flew
it was daylight
i didn’t look out the window.

now
i look outside and see
a thousand lights;
and each light is
a thousand souls
burning against
the
gaslamp yellow nightscape.

clouds provide a familiar metaphor
yet those nightshade souls still glimmer through
where the cotton grey
is weakest
shining
as i like to imagine they will always shine
even though i know
that always is a relative term.

once in Tokyo i had the perfect drink
like electric moonbeams
and violets
and secrets soaked in gin.

i taste it here
in the recycled air above the nightscape
while viewing the souls
that may or may not be
the remnants of fevered dreams.

listen with me
if we’re very quiet, we can hear
the faint strains of
tokyo jazz
filtering through the soft thrum
of wheels and
motorized air
and a crying baby that’s never tasted
the smoky sweet burn of gin and juniper.

A careless comment made without a second thought.
A whim with hidden selfish intent.
Saying you'll listen, but stopping me as I start to speak,
Unable to look into my eyes as I weep.
Only liking me when I'm smiling and energetic.
You say that's not true, but look at your actions.
What's your voice really saying?

Shaken and scared, I ask you to comfort me.
Picking and choosing my words carefully, as you fail to understand the meaning.
Seeing how insignificant myself and others are,
Why do I keep trying when their true faces are so ugly?
"Don't judge a book by it's cover", yet beauty has nothing to do with intent.
The colors I try to paint turn into a black puddle seeping at my feet.
"Isn't it beautiful?" I ask. They nod, not even acknowledging the hidden message.

Upon returning home, I set the canvas ablaze.
"No one listens  when I truly speak what I mean. They want a grey lie, constructed carefully with a trying smile, not this ugly black sin.
All of them.
All of them.

"I'm listening."
"I'll be there."
"You're safe."
"You can trust me."
"I love you."

Withdrawn, I humor your words with an analytical expression.
You deny any subtle suggestion of fault, pressing further down the rabbit hole I've expelled you from,  and yet you wonder why we aren't close.
I lose my patience and break you off, returning to a slumber where I choke from a lie that truly hits my core.

You, the only person who truly matters,
taken away in a squad car when we had just stopped for ice cream.
These unfamiliar faces take you away, saying it's unacceptable.
I reflect as I wait for your trial, trying to break you free.
I realize that this world must be wrong, with it's gaze cast full of judgement.
My eyes cloud with tears as I realize my sins, my hypocrisy.
I'm no better, yet I can't help but scream as they take you away.
Do I really have a right?

This hatred I have for those who pin the vulnerable,
The unacceptable.
Are my actions really any different?
Shaken,  I focus these inward emotions into an explosion.
The red on the canvas fades to black, and I camouflage into the city nightscape.

You're a starlight I caught myself gazing at,
I can paint you with colors of the night.
Looking out the window
You're that star in the sky
That shines the brightest.
So elegant, I can see your slight twinkle
Like you're doing your own dance.
I can almost see it now,
How when I see you,
My self, deep inside
All I want to do
Is join you in that dance.
Behind these walls I'll stay
And fall into this trance .
I'll gaze at you and weep
My soul is trapped,
No wings of freedom
No joy to make me leap.
With every passing moment
I paint you with the colors of the night.
I know every star that adorns the sky
Every diamond that dots the nightscape.
But in this cage I'll sit and watch
You're the one star I wish upon,
Every night.

A cat jumps around in the moonlight,
Scared a little sparrow.
A peony flower opens,
her white dress blushed.
A swarm of bees came and went,
Flowers were being embroidered.
A frog is playing the music,
A white lily danced with joy.
A princess on the lake smiled,
Lotus around like knights.
Gently lying in the arms of the water,
Splash! a group of goldfish jumped out.
It's a beautiful paradise.
The moon drew a priceless picture.

The nagging sleep claws into pink flesh begging it's death-like manner into a call to action

Biting cold with the death dream, fickle imagination setting fire to decency

And the little dreams dance about in your head, mad children lurking, orphaned-

Then the rattling of the rafters with the years behind,
Their black mess still lingering-
Feeding off the disease cast aside

Poor dream,
The ugly nightscape has been sobered up
The pangs were left in poverty

No I do not need your fetishes..
And the parasites flee

It's stories above where the butterflies rustled,
Whirring between the lights in aeolian bustle.
I'm smiling spritely at a neon halo,
While my organs writhe in jacqueminot El Niño.
Wading the nightscape  with a glitched simper,
I could not change nor attempt to tinker,
Just breaching the moments passing to linger.
Fingers, then palms, then lips, then black,
Then for a few seconds the world collapsed.
A breath, a sip, some wit, I'm back.
Shed the murky vision of captive cataracts.
And now,
The sylph saunters in epitomized elegance,
And I've buckled on the inside to the resonant reverence.
I follow the fragrance in her wake as paralyzed sedatives,
And anything I might say could only lack eloquence.
Then magnanimous mantras attract exact,
It seems way down the rabbit hole I've finally met my match.
There's a mesh of flesh, a smooth caress,
Then I wake and realize these were not visions yonder death.
Particles of my brain erupt,
I can't explain away the unfading elation of touch.
Every pose palatial down to the pixels,
I'd gaze deep in the sheen of her mind gleaming as crystals.
Her eyes open like daybreak in flashes,
Sunstreaks glint over the horizon of her lashes.
There's morning songbirds behind the taste of coffee,
I think she's figured I'm just a well decorated softy.
Unveiling my most human of contentions stripped to the eclipse of logic,
My former self laughs in tones pitched sardonic.
Euphorically strumming at gossamer heartstrings,
Etched in the fabric as sakura carvings.

The dark purity of the night, I lustily sought,
to juxtapose it with the exhilaration filling in me
seeing her lush,**** body's eager anticipation.

Each cell comes alive, in her libidinous embrace,
Her erogenous silken touches,blends with the satin sheen
of sheer black cover darkness unfurls one end to the other,
the  dreamy lighted spots, embellish the nightscape's  opulence.
Night, anointed us with the fluence of love, when our supple bodies,
entangled in the bed till we drunk slept, blissfully lost the world.

If you could feel what I can feel,  

Sleep would be kept from you too,

Watching the sheep count my dreams,

Waiting for the rain to start,

Torn into pieces before the dawn,

Phantoms twitch into life,

They watch me squirm on the edge of a knife

Imaginary tunes ring in my ears,

Dancing round the room held up by strings,

Never ending words upon a canvas soul,

fluttering ribbons on a maypole,

Waiting for the clocks to laugh,

The mists of time choke my breath,

If you could feel what I can feel,

Sleep would be kept from you too.

nothing is trite, nothing is optional
waited and waited and to the heavens
no prying notion, not even a fear escapes
the mind's tricks or worry that phrases
could be repetitive-

exuding the forces of the world
legs and arms and eyes and mind
there are not dactyls to measure
such words, when the words do not
yet exist.

There is no unfinished ends that need soldering,
I sent the letters in my last life. The one where upon me
You crept up and looked at the chasm and held the rocks
From my pockets in your hands, and took off my robe.
I don't even know how long I'd been staring into the deep
Insanities of The Plateau, counting sheep, and hedging bets,
Slowly going completely into the Pacific, rising and bowing
Inside the blooming ripples of those fourteen foot waves that
Never made the break wall. Maybe it was I colliding with
Those enormous ships of victory I envied that bore the flags of
China and tore away from the coastline.

I don't care what you say, I believe it was you calling.
Beethoven could have heard the call.
In fact, he did. It's the odes of joy.
Don't get hung up on improper word use,
There will be time for us to write each other's sentences,
Build one another's dictionaries, and bend who's and what's, where's,
How's, and why's.

What azurean universe lives in the cornucopia of pulchritudinous lumens
That shape your eyes? What language is it that spoke its creation? Teach Me the languages that breed the shaky and vibrant voices of rock and roll.
The ridges inside the tide that bring the sea life to live. I will, I will hunt Dinosaurs and Guitarasaurus Rex will hang its Ray Ban wearing head of Enormous proportions out of the deciduous treeline to dazzle us with
The gorgeousness of delta blues rock and pre-Cretaceous 50s icon pop
While we slide on the wooden floors having our sock hop.

Seussing us up into a pinwheel of onomatopoeia
And nightscape of stardust, song, and merriment.
The beginning of a memoir, the counting back of hours like
Driving with the Ferrari California's gears in reverse to shed
Off the extra mileage, or swim in salt water pools, and drink
Pink and orange aeviternal eves and the groves of lavender, lilac, and Streaming cerise bands of light entomb these two lovers in the Mesmerizing drove of morning, upon some moon-draped porch
Some Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday in
Satirical snow-covered and 50º Chicago.

Say I can play guitar and I can play guitar
But only when we're teaching we,
Sunday thru the ends of years
And the offspring of those years.
Back from the hours, unlocked by the tides, and
Hemmed to the interstices of fingertips and
Internal yearnings for olives and olive juices.
Eves, morns, and the 33 hour day.
Where in your enchanting cadence of life
All is well, extending beyond good and beyond okay:
excelsior. Since our bonds coalesced just this past Sunday.

For Saranell

stormless nightscape
neon lightning
car-thunder and auto-hum
the dark doldrums
sky scrapes
violence even in brightest daytime
the city is
its own weather system
tempestuous / slum
lashing / victims
of architecture: humans undone
slithering, slithering
we,    slugs of no sun

Barreling through town
in the depth of night,
earth’s colossal magnets
hurled jagged fire spears -
flashing and ripping the midnight sky.

Whirling torrents whistled
and lashed against the glass.
A blinding fire bolt
Shattered an old rock maple -
quaking our shelter to its footings.

Cosmic strobe-lit concussions
stuttered and roared across the nightscape
like a feral timpanist gone mad.

The frenzied cacophony
subsided at last -
rumbled off  in the distance
as the storm lumbered on
like a barbarian horde
off to sack another village.

*July, 2007

Oh I wish I could dream
neath a nightscape disaster
frowning entanglements
formed in these eyes
Fractured endeavors
from here till tomorrow
born of this heart
atop stagnant steam skies

Dripping of sense
never once fond of finding
answers in deep
as the quicksand holds on
Sinking this man
into unknown decisions
raking his soul
crossed the oncoming dawn

Painting a picture
in oils on canvas
clear as a bell
ringing quick to it’s toll
Clutching this throat
deterring all breathing
dropping the fear
ever ******* his soul

Grabbing a thread
and a rusty old needle
stitching this mouth
so to no longer speak
Draining that blood
pulled from fingertip prickings
crimson expense
slowly rendering weak

Watching the fall
from some higher up places
chuckling loud
at the sound of his scream
Checking a pulse
in an emptiness feeling
waving goodbye
Oh I wish I could dream

The road behind bares us a backdrop, too many nights find us fractured in our thoughts and the dreamers we once were are far from the two people who stand today.

We're broken, mere splinters of our shipwreck past, driftwood on a shore that drowns every time the ocean breathes.
The path is littered with slaughtered dreams that didn't bleed.

As time and tide wait for no man shall we find it a tragic scene?
simply erased with the sunsets demise?
No one gets away without a scar and mine speak a road map to chaos
and a found hello to you.

Mine own scars are fingertips
gouged into the sand and faded
but salted by tears of the ocean, inerasable by the tide.
A soul washed up upon the shore, a road map etched delicately into fine bones.
You can trace where I'd been before. All roads lead to your hello.

In broken lines and have uttered phrases and one too many empty night.
Backdrop of chaos does paint in the darkest colors you could ever imagine .

How does it gets so flawed by our own creations and vices my dear?
Does it still ring ever so true?

The bell rings true whispering distant voices
Empty nights are just bottles lined up as dead soldiers
We contemplated our own truths and fell victim to our own vices
The backdrop is black, no colour beneath skin.
Honestly? Where does our downfall begin?

Two ships underneath the nightscape past the spark once understood the flame and nothing more .
In empty alleys, like cats to prowl, we find our moments, and then bury our thoughts to lay for no others to see.

half written papers and half heard conversation the keys of the piano haunt the silence as myself shadows that still remain.

Nothing is but a thought and those are like dead flowers laid to waste a reflection of far better times

The night crawls to meet the day as it has so many times before.

The thought of the minds bottle lay empty upon the table.
A fond farewell is but a sugar coated goodbye.
And I seldom have minced my words to mask their sting.

The page forever bleeds.

Pages that lay scattered on a ***** floor
Bleeding ink into cracks
that will forever more
hide the spirit of our souls

night fell,

clouds
crowding
a tumultuous sky.

in the darkening far,
houses alight into homes.

near, top of the hill,
bells await
enrobed
in the lit silence
of the tower,
lighthouse
in a darkening dark.

time
will pass by,
hurrying,
carried by the
echoed ringing
into a dissipated horizon.

far, far,
the stroke,
the echo,

reverberations
cradling
some melody
on loneliness.

I almost forgot you-
and then it hit me as I sat
staring out the window,
searching an empty nightscape.

Recollections of your tenderness
soothing me from echoes of your voice
and the lightest touches of your hands.

I wanted them on me
and I wanted you near me so badly
I was willing to pay any price.

Intoxicated, stumbling from shadow to shadow-
quietly, quietly so not to be heard.
Sneaking sideways into rooms
covertly, covertly so not to be seen.

A whole spring to spring romance
hidden beneath facades we both struggled to maintain
in our appropriate adult lives that
were killing us slowly from the inside.

And then you were leaving with her-
I was staying with him.
And I was jealous and heartsick
to realize I was just your passing phase
of hunger for passion, not where your heart lived.

It’s to my credit only I never let you have me,
and I can go on knowing I will always be your siren;
But you will never be mine again.
A new ring on my finger promises
a love I have never known and one I knew
you could have never given me.

.

Lush surroundings of
emerald nightscape valleys
upon moonrise silhouettes,
play my imagination
in f-sharp compositions
and bar chord desires
as I slip off into
the soft acoustic melodies of
another mesmerizing evening
*lost within the concerto of our love

I was in a car crash two years ago. Fell asleep behind the wheel.
In the morning, all I could help thinking, was that if dogs go straight to heaven, there must be a reason why cats have nine lives, as if Saving Grace allowed for eight more chances of redemption.

8. It was a frayed wire beneath my feet. An old friend, knocking on my door. As I stepped forward, I felt the hard embrace of cold fury. Blue light coursing through me as my veins spouted fire, the feeling, like the bite of a needle. I watched as my eyes opened like Lazarus, so close I could touch it, this power, the thrum of a muscle car.

7. Seven is never as close as we like, and with Seven days until Sunday, my rest, is not yet at hand. Seven, is not quite Heaven and lasers just aren't as fun when you have seven thousand volts coursing through you. Muscles contract to a shape so obscene.

6. As this count down clock ticks past I find myself desperately searching for a way out, a green wire that I can cut, freeze myself in this moment and retain some dignity. It’s hard not to realise with a giant six stuck on your forehead that your hair, and your appetite are both commodities that are slowly being embezzled away. Lock your doors for time steals everything from you. Hide your face before you lose your smile and each time you look into the mirror, take heed that this might be your last, don’t be surprised when you forget the colour of your eyes. It’s funny, that this titanium armour of numbers can be so easily chipped away, it was nothing but a puddle this time. So much liquor poured down my throat, it only took a little water to close it off.

5. When should I understand that life isn’t guaranteed yet? Am I completely out of my mind to ignore grace and drive blind? My arm, after repetitive failures, reaches out into the night, trying to grasp hold of a lifeline. Supplicating the Sky, pleading it to save itself from me.
The only difference between an addict and the one who is drowning is that the one who is drowning knows it.  I will drink the sea until I become it. Lighthouse beacons glisten on the shore, these streetlights blur past me to yank sleeping eyes from attending the oncoming traffic.

4. I’m beginning to see this dance for what it is. Serene in my confidence I have done this act before, played superman for so long, kryptonite has no affect on me. I breathe in the rush, the adrenaline pumping, fear shooting from my fingertips. How can I not be blessed when I know the euphoric glory of Zeus’ bolts?
Lightning struck the fear of God into my system.

I guess I wasn’t fearful enough.
The next day Death issued a warrant for the vehicle I was driving. An eighteen wheeler driving past me, thank god for anonymous bail outs, blown rubber wrapping around the axle a semi and a snow bank of uncertainty reminding me that I only have two lives left. It’s amazing just how graceful Grace can be crashing, with no safety net. A 4,000 pound pirouette pulled to a stop by a curb. I don’t know how much longer I can play this game of Roulette.

I’m sick of being this dying star hanging in the nightscape. I want to shine again.
To learn what it’s like to love un-encumbered. To look in the mirror and see my own face, to know that we may have nine lives, and one chance.

And now I get it, with headlights approaching, that dogs may go straight to heaven but we cats, must earn our place.

And I pray, that before I reach ten in vain, my guardian angel, might throw away her abacus.

I wished you before
under a cracked star
     under a nightscape
My eyes.      Closed
Shut tight.  Locked windows
I wished us together
Phantom lover
I wished us driving
to places alone under
cycles of Moon
playing and dancing like birds
Cradle my wayword bony curve
in your safe space
If you were sour
I'd excuse because
like mommy always said
" If he's mean, that means he likes
you."
But a heart-shaped bruise
is still a bruise
And I'll always be little spoon

My creature tears up suburban nightscape on a bike
Activate: punk rock soundtrack
Do you have the headphones equipped?

He lost his driver's license
******* idiot
It's still fun though,

I have every intention of Infecting this area
You'll receive a cordial invitation from my lips
I'm imbued with the coming sensation
I just want the soundwaves to hit my stomach
I just want to cast my colors out into the world
And here they go one by one

It's gonna ring from ear to ear

Take my hand
while we walk this dreamscape
this nightscape
trading minutes for something
near extraordinary
more costly than time
an infinite moment
with no rhyme

A summer night's skyscape
Such beauty, contrary breath-take
Heaven's make
Starlight's stake
God's gift
Nightscape

Sticking a tre-flip off of that three stair behind the bowling alley.

A suicide bomber strapped with C4 running into a crowded building.

Carving up the powder, bombing down the mountain on a freshly waxed snowboard.

Shooting up a movie theater with a 3D printed, fully-automatic 9mm sub machine gun.

Catching a gnarly ten foot wave off the coast of Hawaii and ramping off the lip to catch some air.

Indoctrination of uneducated children and young men to serve as soldiers for an unending holy war.

Landing a backflip on a Haro BMX bike while a crowd of onlookers chants and cheers.

Subversion and subterfuge within a foreign government in order to topple the current president.

Dropping in to a half pipe at the same time as someone else and hitting a high-five in the air.

Starting fires across a city nightscape to purge the neighborhood of vacant buildings and houses.

Another summer, lone wanderer
soaring through empty streets;
High on the city's quietness,
I chase the sky's hue: an indigo fade
calls to memory, asks of it to another place.
Cradled by the vibrant melodies
of my Lunatic Harness, I hurtle into the nightscape